The Spaces in Between (27 page)

But now Cameron found himself in the Abyss again. Nyarlahothep was talking to him again, but this time he had no gun to fight him off. Nyarlahothep was telling Cameron to look into the mirror.

“What mirror?” Cameron asked and rested his forehead between his thumb and index finger. His temples were throbbing.

Look closer.

A white rectangle floated under the seven glowing eyes. Cameron’s eyes glanced into the mirror anything to avoid looking at those eyes. He caught a glimpse of himself trying to stop Warren Elliot from returning without his arm. It shifted to Cameron while drunk placing the protection wards on Warren. He broke his gaze on this mirror.

The mirror showed the viewer their good deeds. Somehow the concept of this mirror terrified him.
Is it because Nyarlahothep held it?

This is all the good you’ve done in your life. All of your lives. Combined. It will be because of these that you can’t cross the Abyss.

This made no sense. Barred from Heaven because of the good they committed in life. That is the opposite of well…Christianity.
Not that Christianity laid any claims to Cameron as its distant cousin Sananda told him.
No good deed ever goes unpunished.

No truer words. Despair little pirate. Novice optometrist.

Yet there was something not quite right here. Nyarlahothep could take any shape be it pleasing or not. He could take no shape at all if he willed. But there was one thing he could never change. The only thing you can count a liar to do is lie, but the most convincing of lies has a kernel of truth to them. Even if that kernel was not even large enough to feed a mouse.

Whenever Cameron had stumbled into doing the right thing it was almost always for the wrong reason. He was holding on to them, because one day he might find a spa where he could cash in those good deeds. Sounds horrible, but the majority of Creation is motivated into doing what little good it does for these exact reasons. Heaven surely looked for those good deeds for the sake of doing good deeds. Good deeds without ego.

Cameron fixed his gaze on the mirror again. He was seeing his assault on
Hallow One
to free those souls trapped in Harvey’s net. From the base of his throat Crowley’s holy trinity “EEEEHHHH, AAAAAHHHH, OOOOHHHH” rose. Cameron’s reflection changed to a pure white figure that reminded him of Noremac. An arm that looked like it was made of pure white light burst from the center of the mirror and pulled Cameron through.

Inside of the mirror everything took the look of a photonegative. Black hands pulled him forward with a white sky hanging overhead. It was an unpleasant feeling being pulled forward. Not like being pulled apart, but rather being pushed through a filter. However, when he emerged on the other side of the Abyss, he felt like a new man. Like a million dollars. So maybe those good deeds could get cashed in after all.

25

His good mood boiled in his belly when he saw who stood waiting for him on the other side of the mirror. The negative image effect had faded. Here he stood in an endless purple void and along with him stood Lilith in a ring of stones that reminded him of Stonehenge.

“Welcome to
Chokmah
, Pirate King.”

“You’ve been keeping my child from me,” Cameron said with as much righteous anger as he could muster which admittedly was not enough.

Lilith shrugged. “You suddenly left us and only came back when you needed a favor.”

“You’re job is to open the gate to the Underworld. Doing what you’re supposed to do is hardly a favor.”

“I named him after you.” Her vermillion lips peeled back into a stunning, but terrible smile.

“We’re not having this discussion now,” Cameron said, “I want to have this discussion when I can get so angry that I the veins in my forehead explode, and the facility’s to shoot you in the face until I run out of bullets.”

“You would shoot the mother of your own child?”

“I know it couldn’t kill you.” He paused, his anger suppressed for now. He knew bottling emotions wasn’t a very good trait, but there was so little to put in there anyway. He would hold on to it for now. As soon as this was over he planned turn the bottle into a Molotov cocktail and hurl it into Lilith’s courtyard. Once his anger subsided he realized there was something fundamentally wrong here. “Why are you here?”

“To be your guide,” Lilith said with a little demure smile.

“But why are you
here
?” Cameron intoned carefully. “
Chokmah
is the sphere of the divine masculine. The holy father! Then why are you here?”

“You’re a father.” Lilith unsubtly tried to turn Cameron back to his anger. He only glared at her. “Also your mind seems to think that I would be the best or most sinister choice for your next toll.”

“And that?”

“Your wand.”

“Excuse me? I’m not much for using props in my magic.”

“Yes, well you know what the wand always represents.” Cameron cringed. “You can trust me with it. I’ll keep it safe.” She smiled, and Cameron muttered so loud it was almost a growl. He reached down his pants and handed her his manhood.

He paid no attention to the Tarot card that she handed him, and walked through the door into the next path.

26

The Tarot card door slammed behind him. Cameron didn’t bother looking back. It was a tunnel with a light at the end of it. A cliché that he was seeing often here on the Tree. Was it really that important of a symbol to humans? Cameron could see far more into this tunnel than the others. The walls and floor were coated with rubies that were slick and squishy to the touch. At least they looked like rubies. They were probably not, but Cameron really didn’t care. Cameron didn’t care that the Hebrew letter
Gimel
was spray painted on the wall, either.

Cameron’s stomach was taunt as stone and her intestines that felt like they were going through a vise. Cameron was pissed and had every reason to be. Wandering, dickless, through the Upper Realms of the Tree. No only that but Cameron’s breast were absolutely throbbing…
Wait.
Breasts?
Cameron gave herself a quick grope, and found that these were beyond the dreaded manboob. Not only had Cameron given up a penis, but literally manhood as well.

She felt a trickle down the inside of her pants leg. Cameron grimaced, because she realized the challenge of this path. Wandering as a woman, on her time of the month no less, was one hell of a challenge for someone who had been a man all their life.

Motherfucker.

27

She finally reached the end of the tunnel and found it
humbling
. Cameron found herself in a stone circle similar to Stonehenge – a site of the sacred feminine, but standing in the center of it was anything but. The antithesis of the sacred feminine and in most’s opinion Lilith and Eve’s worse half – Adam.

“I’m noticing a theme here,” Cameron said, “and I find it quite alarming.”

“Then I take it you know why I’m here,” Adam smirked and even this arrogant expression was beautiful. Why wouldn’t it be? It was handcrafted by God. If you go by a direct interpretation of the Bible it
is
God’s smartass smile.

“To take my womanhood? If this is an innuendo, I assure you I’ll rip yours off to replace what I’ve given up on the tree.” She had just gotten it, well it was hard to tell how long ago it was exactly, but she had no intentions of letting it go without a fight now that she did.

“I would relish your attempt to try, Blasphemer, but that is not why I am here. And you? I could do far better.” He paused maybe to observe the sun that was now setting and turned the sky to a blazing pink. “I just need your ovaries to let you pass.”

“I think there’s more to the inner workings than that, but it’s been a long time since ninth grade health.”

“As a symbol, Blasphemer. Symbols are currency to the spiritual realms.”

“Yes, yes, right.” Cameron reached down her pants and withdrew the ovaries with the same care as a kid with a pair of nunchuks. Cameron slung them around his shoulder like Bruce Lee for emphasis before tossing them to Adam. In response Adam tossed him the final tarot card – the Fool.

The Fool represents the start of a journey, which would strike most people as an odd choice for the last card. Cameron felt it was safe to assume that the journey was just beginning. At least the hard part anyway. The card was plastered to the standing stone closest to Cameron and as always transformed into a door. On the other side everything was white.

28

There was nothing on the other side of the Fool door aside from a staircase. The staircase was as white as everything else, but seemed to stretch forever up. The only real way to differentiate it from the black was that the staircase cast a shadow from an unknown light source. The direction of the light seemed to come from all sides. Each step was cold and smooth as marble.

Careful now, you’re on the stairway to heaven.

No, it should be Heaven with a capital h. This is truly the stairway to Heaven and the now sexless Cameron was walking it. Cameron wished there were shoes on his feet so there at least would be the *tak* *tak* sound of the heels hitting the marble to keep him company. However, the stairway didn’t really go that far at all. It only seemed that way. Trick of the light.

Cameron’s face was blanketed by a veil and the Pirate King took a step back. He plunged his right hand into the veil and withdrew it. The veil against his pseudo-skin reminded him of hair; very thin, silky white hair. The Pirate King tried again to pass through the veil but could find no bottom, no part, and no give in it. Cameron backed up now very aware of the platform the Pirate King was standing on had no discernable borders. Cameron strained the one good eye in an attempt to find a change in the white veil, but there was no sense but touch to tell the Pirate King that there was even a veil there in the first place.

Then a shadow began to bleed through the veil. This shadow became the outline of a Face. The Face was androgynous, raceless, and specieless yet it was perfectly recognizable. The Face of none and all simultaneously. The Face of a long lost friend. Any further attempt to description would sully It. There was the smell of freshly brewed black coffee. And a singing. A beautiful singing of an infinite chorus. Then there was a humming, and that humming was coming from Cameron. The humming was coming from the Pirate King and vibrating through the abdomen.

There was a white flash of heat from the base of the Pirate King’s spine. Before it felt like he could stand no more of this sweet agony it suddenly ceased. The imprint of the face behind was lifeless like those on the metal pin apparatuses found discarded all over department stores.

The veil parted, and Cameron wept.

29

“Makoto Tsuen,” the Archangel Raphael proclaimed to him, “Gaze upon this mirror. Witness the terrors you brought in this lifetime alone for they are the reason you can pass no further.” Raphael held the mirror between them like a shield, but Tsuen merely laughed.

“Do you mock one of the messengers of the Name? The bearers of His will ineffable?” Raphael was now livid. The brim of his yellow cloak billowed on its own volition now, and his blond hair seemed to float around his head.

“In my life I had seen one touched by God,” Tsuen’s usually stoic face had suddenly become twisted in such rage it looked like he suddenly donned a kabuki mask. “I had never seen something so disgusting in my life.” Tsuen’s eyes had darkened to pure black. The mirror cracked and the frame strained. “And I am tired of his bullshit. I’m going to march to
Ain
Soph
Aur
and tear him down from his throne if I can.” The mirror shattered in Raphael’s hands.

Before the glass even touched the ground Tsuen’s large katana had leap from its scabbard, but before even that Raphael’s spear the caduceus had was drawn and thrust towards the Lemurian’s throat. The tip of the spear only made it within a millimeter of the throat. The Archangel was frozen in place and he quickly realized that the huge Lemurian did not come alone. Raphael was being held by hundreds if not thousands of shriveled gray men with sunken black eyes.

Tsuen easily snatched the caduceus from the Archangel’s grip. He twirled the spear between his fingers and cut through the air. The
Sephirot
of
Tipharet
tore open and poured its content into the black space between Universes,
Ain

.

30

Cameron could hear the chimes and the humming again, but now it was faint and in the distance. But there. Oh God, yes, it was always there. Kristina was here, too. She was standing behind the veil when it fell. She was draped in a radiant white dress, and he was thankful for not seeing her in the clothes she died in. No, the clothes he killed her in would be too much for him.

“Kris? Is it actually you this time?” Cameron asked.

“Yes, it’s really me, Cam. I’m supposed to guide you through Kether. Or Heaven if you’d rather.” Kether the final or the first Sephirot depending on how you look at the Tree of Life, but always at the top. “I thought this was the form you’d like best since it was the most recent. But we’ve been together many lives. Brother-sister, husband-wife, vice-versa. The fate of our souls always seems entwined. Is there another life you’d rather me be from?”

“What? Oh. Ew. No, gross.” Cameron cut off a stream of tears with his hand.

“I see you still have some of your ego attached. Search the Akashic records you’ll see the multitude of lives to choose from.”

Cameron almost did for a moment, but he knew those lives would be nigh infinite. He had a job to do and that was something he could certainly get lost in. “I’ll just stick to this form.” His clothes and body became whole again. “It’s really wonderful to see you again, Kris, but I’m kinda here on business. I’m not dead so I won’t be staying this time.”